Letters: Chula Vista bayfront

In response to “Chula Vista vision” (Opinion, July 8): At the end of Chapter Nine in the classic book, “The Grapes of Wrath,” John Steinbeck writes about a poor family forced to leave their Midwest home by drought and economic hardship. They are trapped in a hopeless situation and decide to go to California: “The woman sat among the doomed thing turning them over and looking past them and back.” As they were forced to leave many precious items behind, such as old family books, paintings, dishes and collectibles, one of the old women says, “How can we live without our lives? How will we know it’s us without our past?”

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This is a question we must ask also. It is our duty to improve on our common ground without destroying our cultural heritage. Chula Vista residents need a place for the residents to have outdoor concerts, art festivals, humanitarian rallies and sports runs. This is why our community needs the promised Bayfront Signature Park, a place where we can remember our “past Chula Vista bayfront” and live with our lives. – Jerry Thomas, Chula Vista

I have lived in Chula Vista for nearly 45 years, and the development of the bay area has been a long development process. The citizens have on many occasions given in to City Hall to have the development completed, to only have the city government err and the development not go forward.

Here again, we have city government, the mayor in particular, who is painting a grand picture of the development (“A promising future for South Bay waterfront”) at the expense of the what the citizens of Chula Vista have asked for all along. A “signature park” that is the only thing that the citizen have over the past 45 years have wanted and asked the city to provide in the development.

We are not getting a “signature park” for the citizens of Chula Vista to use. The so-called park area is along the northern side of the development area restricts noise and people activities. What good is a park if people cannot use it for recreation or group gathering and sports activities?

I for one, would like the park returned to the originally agreed area, that was later provided to Gaylord for its hotel/conference center. The mayor will not have any part of this proposal. – Willard “Doc” Howard, Chula Vista

The mayor and the Chula Vista representative to the port district gush about how the quality of life in Chula Vista will be enhanced by converting a formerly industrial and open space 500-acre bayfront site into an intensely developed commercialization project. Although this development is said to be the product of years of collaborative effort, the present plan has always been driven by developers and the revenue-hungry city of Chula Vista who visualize only towering high-rise hotels, commercial buildings and condominiums, with a few crumbs of parkland thrown in for the residents who will have to put up with view-blocking walls of concrete and glass.